


degrees of separation

by crickets



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Cousin Incest, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-13
Updated: 2011-07-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 03:31:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets





	degrees of separation

_**[fic] degrees of separation; elena/tyler, jeremy/tyler, elena/jeremy/tyler**_  
 **title; rating** : degrees of separation; r  
 **fandom, pairings; count** : the vampire diaries; elena/tyler, jeremy/tyler, elena/jeremy/tyler; 3558  
 **notes** : When the search party leaves town, there are still some left behind. (I don't know where this came from or how it even exists.) Thank you [](http://kmousie.livejournal.com/profile)[**kmousie**](http://kmousie.livejournal.com/) for the beta read.  
  
 _They stay behind:_ The doppleganger, her human brother, the school teacher, and the werewolf.

Tyler's not strong enough to combat a regular vampire, let alone Klaus, or Stefan at his full strength for that matter, and the full moon makes him a danger to everyone involved. Elena's little more than human, and even though it kills them both to stay behind, they do.

"I don't get it," Tyler says. "They up and leave in the middle of the night and take Bonnie with them but not us? Not me?" He paces back and forth in his room.

Elena sits cross-legged on the bed across from Jeremy, watching Tyler as he circles the room.

"Shut it, Lockwood," Jeremy cocks his head defensively. "Bonnie's stronger than all of us combined."

Elena reaches out and stops Tyler in his tracks, her hand wrapped around his wrist. "Damon knows what he's doing," she tells him, resigned to it. "Caroline, Katherine, and Bonnie are his best bet. The rest of us would just get in the way."

Tyler groans and places himself between them on the bed, knowing she's right.

 _This is how it starts._

-

With Alaric back in his apartment for the most part, Jeremy and Elena can barely stand to be alone in the house.

The first day of summer vacation, Elena sits at the top of the stairs. It's morning, and the only sound in the house is Jeremy's cereal spoon clanking against his bowl as he eats Rice Krispies on the couch below.

"This place feels like a tomb." Her voice is small and far away.

Jeremy clicks on the TV.

 _The doorbell rings._

-

The majority of their summer is spent at the Gilberts’.

Tyler provides a much-needed, much-welcome, distraction.

He plays video games with Jeremy and watches stupid soap operas with Elena in the afternoons, helps them paint over Jenna's room with something bright and cheerful that Jeremy can't stand, helps to get rid of all her things. ("Out with the old," Elena says. And Tyler can't seem to understand her cavalier attitude toward yet another death in her life.) He buys them all dinner every night so nobody has to cook or do dishes. And some nights he crashes on their couch.

They know he'll disappear for a day or so around the full moon, but aside from that, everything is normal.

About as normal as Mystic Falls can get, anyway.

-

They hear from the search party every now and then. Usually it's Caroline on the other end of the line, and Tyler excuses himself, spends a half an hour holed up in Elena's room with the phone.

"No good news," he says when he finally emerges, and Elena squeezes his hand.

"No bad news either though, right?" she assures him.

-

Somehow, Jeremy lets it slip about Tyler's hidden talent.

"I want you to teach me," she says.

Tyler looks at her skeptically.

"I write," she explains, fumbling with her words in a way she can't remember doing in ages. "I mean, I try to write anyway. But, I never really had the talent for art. I've always wanted to try." She shrugs, her voice sounding hopeful. "And Jeremy definitely doesn't have the patience," she adds seriously.

In Jenna's old room, they set up one of Jeremy's easels, more for show than anything else, _to make it official_ , and Tyler brings over his sketchbook.

"I'm not much of a teacher," he warns, but Elena doesn't care.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," she grins and leans closer to him, taking the charcoal from his hand, her fingers brushing his.

-

Their first few sessions in their makeshift studio, Tyler ends up telling her about his dad -- the whole truth. It doesn't matter that he's pretty sure it's not something she didn't already know about, something Matt, or maybe even Jeremy, hadn't already shared with her. It just matters that she listens.

"You didn't deserve any of that," she says one day, locking eyes with him. Aside from Matt, _and not even really with Matt_ , Tyler's never really talked about this with anybody, nothing more than in passing, anyway. And something about hearing the words out loud, something about the way she doesn't seem to look at him any differently _is comforting._

They run through basic exercises, things Tyler remembers from his art classes, and finally he gives her a blank canvas of her own. She picks a photo out of one of Jenna's old magazines that they didn't throw away: a detailed shot of the full moon rising high above a cityscape, with clouds partially covering it.

"What about this one?" she asks, flashing him the page.

"Funny." Tyler grins and rolls his eyes.

Elena works, putting her newly-learned skills to the test, and she giggles after the first few strokes. "Wow, this is harder than it looks."

"Easy," he says, and moves behind her. "You have to feel it." He reaches around and guides her hand down the paper. "It's not just about creating an image. It's about sensation. It's about emotion." He can feel Elena suck in a breath and hold it when he lets his hand rest on her waist. Tyler finds his face half-buried against her hair and he instinctively breathes in, taking in her scent.

He shuts his eyes and their hands still where they are on the page.

After a few moments, Elena bites her lip.

"Tyler?" His name comes out more a whisper than in full voice, and he runs his hand up her forearm in response, can feel the goosebumps rising on her arm.

 _The half-size piece of charcoal drops to the floor._

When she turns to him, a question on her open lips, he claims her mouth with his.

Elena's sketch is forgotten, and the two of them end up on the hardwood floor. Elena bites at Tyler's bottom lip, his hands at her thighs, pushing her skirt up. She pulls at his t-shirt, yanking it over his head, their kiss breaking just long enough to remove the garment.

When Tyler slips two cool fingers into her, Elena reaches out, grabs one leg of the easel and sends it crashing to the floor.

 _Downstairs in the kitchen, Jeremy can hear the unmistakable sounds of sex._

-

The next night, Jeremy and Tyler stay up late watching movies.

"So, you and Elena?" Jeremy starts after a particularly long commercial break.

Tyler glares at him. "We are definitely not talking about that right now," he says. His voice is casual, but Jeremy can tell that Tyler means it.

"Okay," Jeremy says and shrugs, shoving another bite of pizza into his mouth. "Movie's back on."

 _In the morning, Elena finds the two of them asleep on the couch, Jeremy leaning against the arm of the couch and Tyler resting against Jeremy._

"Too cute," she says, shaking her head before heading to the kitchen to make coffee.

-

There's a day out on the lawn. It's a cool late afternoon and the backyard is shaded by century-old trees.

The smell of barbecue fills the air and Tyler breathes in the scent as he stands over the grill. On the rare occasion that they cook, they usually do it outside. Jeremy's behind him, hosing off the patio, and accidentally soaks Tyler's shoes.

Tyler hops sideways in alarm, the cold penetrating all the way to his socks. "Hey!" he grunts, grinning. "These are new shoes!"

Jeremy's mouth spreads into a mischievous smile, and he goes after him. The two end up on the grass, wrestling and rolling around, the hose stuck between them, soaking them both. Tyler elbows Jeremy in the ribs, and they turn over again, this time with Tyler pinning Jeremy down in the closest thing to a wrestling pose that he remembers. He tries to make a grab for the hose, still between them, clutched in Jeremy's fist, and when his hands brush across the front of Jeremy's jeans he can feel that he's hard. The sensation surprises Tyler, not only because of Jeremy's obvious hard-on, but because of how his body reacts to this new knowledge. He can feel own cock twitch, his hips jutting out just a tiny fraction before he pulls back and stops moving altogether.

"Gilbert," Tyler breathes. "That's dangerous territory." A warning. An invitation?

"I know," Jeremy says, licking his lips, his eyes focusing on Tyler's mouth.

They can hear the back door swing open, and Tyler uses the distraction to regain control, taking the hose. "What are you two doing out here?" Elena asks, just as Tyler jumps up and sprays Jeremy full in the face.

Jeremy yelps. "Fucker!" he shouts. But as he scrambles up and runs to hide behind his sister, he's laughing.

Tyler grins, can feel the blush in his cheeks, and just hopes that the fact that he's currently soaked from head to foot will distract Elena enough not to notice. "Nothing," he says. "Nothing at all."

 _He sprays them both._

-

The night before Elena is scheduled to go off to cheer camp, it's a full moon. With Bonnie and Caroline nowhere to be found, the team is really desperate and so she agrees.

That afternoon, Tyler helps her pack.

"This is stupid," he says, pulls her to him, kisses her neck.

Elena leans her head back and rolls her eyes. "You're just saying that because you're not going to get laid for a week."

"Who says?" Tyler says, a grin spread across his face.

"Shut up," Elena swats at him and goes back to the closet. They both know the truth about this: that she's in love with Stefan and he with Caroline and that by the end of summer, or whenever they bring Stefan back, this thing between them will all be over. The thought of Tyler fucking other girls has never occurred to her though, so she has to laugh in order to hide the fact that she doesn't really find it funny at all.

Something in that train of thought makes her remember the awkward moment between Jeremy and Tyler in the yard the other day, how close the two have become, the two of them asleep on the couch together. She grins. "Yeah," she says, teasing. "I forgot that you'll still have the last remaining Gilbert kid to play around with."

Tyler's jaw sets, and Elena knows she must have said something wrong. ( _Or right?_ )

He grabs her arm and pulls her to him, dropping his lips to her ear. "Don't tempt me, Gilbert." He uses the moniker he usually reserves only for Jeremy, and drags her onto the bed.

Elena kisses him and closes her eyes, remembering the scene in the yard through the window. The two of them, Tyler and Jeremy, wet and solid pushing each other around in the grass, Tyler's hand between them, the way they both stopped moving and just stared at each other in the moment before she opened the door.

She thought she had imagined it, but now, with his weight heavy on top of her, a mirror image of him and Jeremy in the yard, his fingers hooked around the fabric of her panties, pulling them aside so he can push into her, she's not so sure.

She bites her lip and grabs the back of his neck, letting him fuck her into the mattress.

Elena closes her eyes, an image of Jeremy and Tyler's lips pressing against each other's flashing before her vision, the thought of the two of them together making her legs grip Tyler tighter, making her lift off the bed just slightly to meet his thrusts.

He calls her name, _her last name_ , and comes before she does.

-

That night, Jeremy is woken up by the sound of a dog howling and growling in the back yard.

Elena is in his room all of a sudden. "Get up! Jeremy!" She growls at him and shakes his foot. "Get up!"

She pulls the cover off of him, and Jeremy curls into the fetal position in protest, the cold air conditioning hitting his bare skin.

"It's Tyler," she says when he's finally listening. "He's at the back door."

Jeremy is up in an instant and heading for his door, but Elena stops him. "No, Jeremy! We can't go down there! If he sees us..." she trails off. She doesn't really know what will happen. Either way, she doesn't let him go downstairs to look. Instead, after they've watched the wolf from the window for a good twenty minutes, long enough to feel certain that he won't be able to get inside and careful that the animal doesn't catch a glimpse of them, Elena locks the bedroom door and climbs into the bed, curling next to Jeremy.

He puts his arm around her and pulls the cover over the both of them.

"It's okay," he whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "We'll be fine."

-

In the morning, before dawn, Jeremy and Elena go downstairs after the howling finally stops.

They cover Tyler, who’s lying naked at their back porch. His hands are bloodied, and he has a few cuts in his side from whatever mischief he'd gotten into before making it across town to their backyard. Jeremy covers him with a throw blanket, lifts him, and carries him to the couch. Elena dresses his wounds while he sleeps.

"He probably came here because he's been spending so much time here," Jeremy shrugs when Elena carries her duffel down the steps. "Lucky, really. He probably didn't hurt anybody else last night because of it."

"I know," she nods, stealing a glance at a still-sleeping Tyler. "Just, take care of him all right? Can you handle that?"

Jeremy shrugs.

Elena punches him in the shoulder. "I'll be back in a week."

-

Tyler sleeps for two days.

When he finally wakes up, Jeremy is next to him watching television on the couch. Tyler springs forward and grabs Jeremy by the collar. "Where's Elena!?" he shouts, _barks_ really.

"What?" Jeremy is too stunned to be able to answer. "I.."

"Where is she?" Tyler barks again, this time pushing Jeremy down onto the couch with his whole body.

Jeremy opens his mouth to speak and Tyler clenches his fingers around his neck, preventing him from using his vocal cords. Tyler is on top of him, wearing just a pair of boxers that Elena had the decency to give him

" _Cheer camp_ ," Jeremy finally manages to squeak out.

Tyler's grip loosens. "You mean I didn't get in inside?" he asks, genuinely perplexed.

"No," Jeremy shakes his head, and reaches out, touching Tyler's cheek. "No, you didn't."

Tyler exhales and bows his head in relief.

Jeremy shifts under him, and Tyler can feel that Jeremy's hard again. He closes his eyes and turns his mouth just enough so it brushes against Jeremy's lips. When he does, Jeremy reacts instantly, his hands going to Tyler's neck, his hair, his pelvis thrusting up and into Tyler's hip.

Tyler pulls out of the kiss and can feel Jeremy fumbling between them to slide his hand between the elastic of his shorts.

 _"Fuck, Gilbert_ ," Tyler grunts when Jeremy grabs hold of him.  
-

When Elena pushes through the front door, she already senses something is wrong.

The place is a mess, first of all, and though that's not unusual for Jeremy, it is for Tyler.

"Guys? I'm home early," she calls up the stairs, but there’s no response.

The television has been left on, some stupid sports highlight show, and she immediately walks over to turn it off. When she does, she hears Jeremy's voice, hears the sound of scuffling coming from upstairs.

 _Who does he have up there?_ Elena thinks, dragging her bag behind her as she ascends the stairs.

But then she hears another voice, one that belongs to Tyler. "Gilbert!" he says, his voice gruff and growling in a way that Elena knows can only mean one of two things, and she's pretty sure she knows which one it is.

Elena drops her bag there in the hall, and slides down the wall outside of Jeremy's room to listen, she can hear the bed groaning under the weight of them, can hear the sound of skin slapping skin, grunting and swearing.

She isn't angry _exactly,_ but she can't seem to make herself get up and move from her spot, to save herself, and them, a little embarrassment.

"Please," she hears Jeremy's voice begging for something, begging for release, for Tyler to touch him, to put his mouth on him, to fuck him? She doesn't know, but the sound is unmistakable.

Elena tries to ignore the feeling that sound elicits in her. The pull at her insides, the hardening of her nipples.

 _But she can't._

All she can do is close her eyes and listen.

-

"Shit," Tyler says, still half-nude as he exits Jeremy's bedroom.

Elena stands, gaping at the two of them. Her eyes dart back and forth from Jeremy to Tyler and back again.

"I don't even," Jeremy simply raises his hands and backs away, shutting his door behind him with a distinct click of the lock.

-

Tyler makes a beeline down the stairs, and Elena is hot on his heels.

"Look, I don't want you to go," Elena says, grabbing his hand once they're both firmly on the first floor.

"What?" Tyler asks. "Why? You just discovered me fucking your brother, Elena. I think now's probably an appropriate time to leave."

"I know," Elena pulls him closer. "But I don't want you to go," she whispers in his ear, places a chaste kiss at the corner of his jaw. "Come back upstairs with me, please?"

Tyler drops his head, stares down at the floor between them. "This is just too weird," he mutters to himself.

"I won't make you," Elena says, shrugging. "Just..., " she turns to go. "Come up if you want. Or don't if you don't. It's up to you."

-

Later, Tyler is in Elena's bed, listening to her whisper into his ear, how she's imagined the two of them together before. How the last time he was inside of her she was thinking of him with Jeremy.

" _Every time I closed my eyes,_ " she says. "It was the two of you."

Tyler kisses her, surprised and taken aback by her candidness. She reaches between them, feels his hardness through his jeans.

"Dammit, Elena," he says. "The two of you are going to fucking kill me."

She grins. " _Not yet,_ " she says before using both hands to unbutton his jeans.

-

When Elena comes down the stairs, she's wearing only Tyler's t-shirt. Jeremy can smell the sex on her, and he just wants to bury his head one of the throw pillows.

"No." Elena says the word like a command and takes the pillow from him, tossing it into the chair.

"Just leave me the fuck alone, Elena," he groans and leans back, his hands over his eyes. He can feel Elena gripping one of his shoulders, holding onto him for balance as she slips into his lap.

His head snaps up when she presses her naked warmth into him.

"You're my fucking sister, Elena," he says pushing her away.

"I am _not_ your sister, Jeremy," she reminds him.

"Close enough," he says, his voice low, but he doesn't push her off. "Fuck!" he grunts when she reaches down and finds his length.

-

Elena leads Jeremy up the stairs, one hand clutched in his.

-

 _It goes something like this._

The door closes behind them, and Tyler is there. Elena sits between them on the bed and doesn't even say a word. She traces the faint mark of an at-home tattoo on Jeremy's shoulder, something he'd done when he was a kid and stupid ,and his parents had been so mad. She leans in and kisses the spot, and then moves to kiss Tyler in the adjacent spot. A mirror image. Jeremy kisses the birthmark on Elena's back, and he's trembling. Tyler reaches for his hand and then they're kissing, it's messy, lips and teeth and tongue, and Elena seems to be holding her breath.

After that, it's the three of them, twisting and folding in together, mouths and salty skin and then it's Jeremy pressing inside of Elena for the first time; and Elena watching the two of them together; the sound of hitched breaths; an exchange of curses and prayers; the smell of sex; Tyler's eyes going yellow when he comes; their soft skin pressed together afterward, falling asleep in each other's arms; and then finally, the sun coming up.

-

The next morning, over breakfast, the three of them don't talk. Tyler cooks eggs, a rare occasion, and Jeremy and Elena both watch him as he moves from the fridge to the stove and back again, their eyes trained on his taut skin, his bare back, the curve of his jawline.

Elena steals a piece of honeydew from Jeremy's plate when he isn't looking.

"Hey! That was mine," Jeremy protests.

Elena laughs, her mouth still full of the sweet fruit. She raises her eyebrows at the innuendo. "When has that ever stopped me?"

Tyler listens to them bickering behind him and grins.

 _-fin_   



End file.
